It's a horrifically-worded headline. MDP is a subscription program that gives you access to a bunch of developer resources (pre-release builds of Apple's software, technical forums staffed by Apple, etc.), sort of like what MSDN does in the Microsoft world. And apparently the subscription fees have changed. Ho hum.
Not required (yet, anyway) simply to distribute software, but Apple's had the Apple Developer Connection for years, and membership in it was required to get some SDKs, early releases of products, some technical support, and listing in the Macintosh Product Guide, among other things.
In short, it provides next to nothing unless you want/need to be on the bleeding edge. If you or your company has a product that needed to be compatible with a new OS rev on the day of the general release then it is worth it so that you had a pre-release version to build and test against, otherwise there is not much there that you need. I don't think there are any SDKs that you can't get via the free ADC membership.
I'm not a member, but don't you get a hardware discount once per year or so that basically makes the membership free, at least once? (and maybe more if you upgrade frequently)
The benefits may not be huge you at least get dev builds of OS X, which is actually useful if you sell certain types of software for OS X.
edit: I see there are no more hardware discounts. Unfortunate.
I can't say I like Apple's use of the term license here. In most contexts, licensing is a process by which a central authority grants permission to certain entities with the express denial of those outside the license. ADC is supposed to be a value-add, not a barrier to entry.
Comments
Wait, you need a license to make software for Mac now? Can't people just download your software from the internet?
It's a horrifically-worded headline. MDP is a subscription program that gives you access to a bunch of developer resources (pre-release builds of Apple's software, technical forums staffed by Apple, etc.), sort of like what MSDN does in the Microsoft world. And apparently the subscription fees have changed. Ho hum.
Not required (yet, anyway) simply to distribute software, but Apple's had the Apple Developer Connection for years, and membership in it was required to get some SDKs, early releases of products, some technical support, and listing in the Macintosh Product Guide, among other things.
In short, it provides next to nothing unless you want/need to be on the bleeding edge. If you or your company has a product that needed to be compatible with a new OS rev on the day of the general release then it is worth it so that you had a pre-release version to build and test against, otherwise there is not much there that you need. I don't think there are any SDKs that you can't get via the free ADC membership.
I'm not a member, but don't you get a hardware discount once per year or so that basically makes the membership free, at least once? (and maybe more if you upgrade frequently)
The benefits may not be huge you at least get dev builds of OS X, which is actually useful if you sell certain types of software for OS X.
edit: I see there are no more hardware discounts. Unfortunate.
I can't say I like Apple's use of the term license here. In most contexts, licensing is a process by which a central authority grants permission to certain entities with the express denial of those outside the license. ADC is supposed to be a value-add, not a barrier to entry.
The article is poorly written and misleading. Apple doesn't use the term licence; this is simply a consolidation of their existing paid ADC levels.